From the Netherlands, a shot of pure oxygen and a beam of truth from the wonderful Geert Wilders to a world constricted by fear and doubt. Breathe and bask.

"Time to Unmask Mohammed" by Geert Wilders, from the Dutch magazine HP/De Tijd:

To know why Islam is a mortal danger one must not only consider the Koran
but also the character of Muhammad, who conceived the Koran and the entirety
of Islam.
The Koran is not just a book. Muslims believe that Allah himself wrote it
and that it was dictated to Muhammad in the original version, the Umm
al-Kitab, which is kept on a table in heaven. Consequently one cannot argue
with the contents. Who would dare to disagree with what Allah himself has
written? This explains much of Muhammadan behaviour, from the violence of
jihad to the hatred and persecution of Jews, Christians and other
non-Muslims and apostates. What we in the West regard as abnormal, is
perfectly normal for Islam.
A second insuperable problem with Islam is the figure of Muhammad....

Reading an "old" (March 21) Telegraph analysis of the Libyan "rebels," I came across this cute little detail about the family ties that bind al Qaeda and the AQ-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG):

The US ambassador to the UN and the commander of NATO can fight over "flickers" of al Qaeda and Hezbollah among the Libyan rebels, but it's clearly indisputable that enemy Hezbollah leader Nasrallah (along with al Qaeda's Abu Yahya al-Libi and MB's Qaradawi as noted here) is firmly in their camp. Which means "our" camp. This is clear from an hour-plus address the Iranian puppet and terror-master gave earlier this month in Beirut.

But there's more to it than that.

I listened to about 20 minutes. After Nasrallah insists neither al Qaeda nor Iran (hah) nor, for that matter, the United States, have had anything to do with unrest in the Middle East, I heard his chilling iteration of the "R2P" driver I've been working through and writing about lately: Israel as the Umma's pricetag to "reconsider the US stance." (Nasrallah's phrase.) What's chilling is that this combination devil's-fool's bargain is one our Intelligentsia (many with big jobs in the Obama administration) seem all too eager to make, despite its immorality, strategic senselessness and sheer ignorance -- as though feeding the jihad beast will make it anything but more rapacious.

Today, NATO commander Admiral James Stavridis told the US Senate something some of us have been noticing from afar ever since this weirdo-bizarre R2P "humanitarian" assault in Libya on American national interest began:

"We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda, Hezbollah."

Hezbollah was a new one on me.

That means the US military is fighting on behalf of flickers that took down the World Trade Center in 2001 and the Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983.

Does anyone care?

Next question: Wouldn't it be great is Admiral Stavridis next told the Senate that, as a result of this heinous policy, he would be stepping down from his command in protest?

But no. Instead, he reassured the Senate "We would be examining very closely the content, composition, the personalities, who are the leaders of these opposition forces."

Aaron Klein is another one of the rare writers who key into Obama's hard Left vibe (and he wrote a great book about it, too), eschewing explanations of "inexperience" or "ineptitude" to parse Obama. Having carried the " R2P" story down the line to George $oro$ last week (link below), Klein reports that a principal author of RSP, Ramesh Thakur (above left) also happens to be -- uncap your smelling salts -- a proponent of "international redistribution."

Klein writes at WND.com:

The author of a military doctrine used by the Obama administration to justify the recent airstrikes targeting the regime of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya recently advocated for a "global rebalancing" and "international redistribution" to create a "New World Order."

The author, Ramesh Thakur, is a fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, which is in partnership with an economic institute founded by philanthropist billionaire George Soros....

When parsing Barack Obama, it's essential to see his hard Left ideological incubation as the prism through with to view his actions. In this way, "dithering" or "ineptitude" do not measure up as explanations for his failings to serve American interests, even though both are continually offered as such by his critics. As a hard Leftist, he has no American interests as "narrowly" defined: They are lost in a grab-bag of what we might call global-elite interests, a noxious package of motivations and beliefs derived from Big Daddy Marxism, anti-Americanism, anti-imperialism, anto-colonialism, pro-Third Worldism, Frantz Fanonism, chip-on-his-shoulderism.... Thus, looking for morning-after critiques of Obam's speech on Libya, I was hoping for a more or less ideological understanding of what was really going on. Stanley Kurtz, one of the few writers who approach Obama through this hard Left prism (he actually wrote a book about it), offers this take, via The Corner:

In this week's syndicated column, I make the exceedingly obvious point that in fighting in support of the Libyan "rebels," the United States is now fighting in support of the Al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood jihad.

More evidence of same in a piece about rebel commander and "Islamic Emir" Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi, by John Rosenthal at PJM.

Excerpt:

In his more recent remarks to Il Sole 24 Ore, al-Hasadi admits not only to fighting against U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but also to recruiting Libyans to fight against American forces in Iraq. As noted in my earlier PJM report here, captured al-Qaeda personnel records show that al-Hasadi’s hometown of Darnah sent more foreign fighters to fight with al-Qaeda in Iraq than any other foreign city or town and “far and away the largest per capita number of fighters.” Al-Hasadi told Il Sole 24 Ore that he personally recruited “around 25” Libyans to fight in Iraq. “Some have come back and today are on the front at Ajdabiya,” al-Hasadi explained, “They are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists.” “The members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader,” al-Hasadi added.

I'll admit, there is an argument – a thin, riddled, web of an argument – that it was U.S. interests that drove military interventions gone wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't buy the argument: As it morphed into a nation-building fantasy, it became disastrously, tragically and recklessly mistaken. But I can see at least that tarnished glimmer of national interest flash in the sludge before sinking from sight.

Nothing like this is to be found in the sands of Libya. This is why the weirdo-bizarre assault on Gadhafi's forces led, but supposedly not really, by the United States under order of the U.N. Security Council (motley crew) and the Arab League (rogue's gallery), crossed a fat, red line. The president of the United States sent the U.S. military, already stretched and worn by nearly a decade of wars, into harm's way for no compelling American reason.

And I mean none. The sudden whim to rid the planet of Gadhafi, while never a bad notion, is, if anything, oddly anticlimactic after his Bush-era debut as a newly minted ally in the "war on terror." Funny thing: "ally" sounds like a ghastly stretch, but WikiLeaks tells us Gadhafi was in fact most cooperative in providing anti-jihad intelligence – which may or may not have been credible. Still, he should know. It was Libyans, according to a 2007 West Point study, who made the strongest showing, per capita, of foreign insurgents in Iraq. It's hard not to believe that some who didn't end up dead or in Gitmo are now "rebels" receiving U.S. air and sea support.

I wasn't even looking for this. I just went to the ISAF website to see whether the grossly underreported weekend murders of two American soldiers (and shootings of four others) by an Afghan security contractor -- again -- was considered newsy enough to post by the official powers that be. "The slayings bring to nine the number of U.S. soldiers who have been killed by rogue Afghan security force members, whether uniformed or private security contractors, in the past two months," NBC reports.

Nine? In the last two months? That whizzed by totally unaccounted for. Did any democratically elected officials even think to ask Gen. Petraeus about it?

I still don't know if ISAF tallied up these latest bodies in a public count. That's because the first item to present itself...

Photo caption: "Forty-two years of nightmare...Now has come the time of Jihad!" -- courtesy Uncle Sucker (photo via John Rosenthal)

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Back in August 2005, I wrote a column on what was a particularly great day for sharia, or Islamic law. It was a day that marked

the end of the constitutional wrangling in Iraq and the beginning of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. Both events — fought for, facilitated, even micromanaged by the U.S. of A. — should expand the domain of Islamic law, which codifies female inferiority and religious inequality. ... By day's end, Iraq, if it settles as expected on a draft constitution based in sharia, and Gaza, as a new sector of the already sharia-vested Palestinian Authority, will have joined the...

Candidate Obama at an Indiana gas station in 2008, blasting GWB and oil companies for ... high gas prices.

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This week's syndicated column:

With poor Japan's nuclear reactors in crisis; with Middle East violence stripping bare American recklessness in relying on an Arab oil supply; with prices rising fast at the local gas pump, there is an almost apocalyptic tension growing in the absence of action on the American energy problem: Tons -- or, rather barrels and cubic feet -- of resources, and no will or even interest on the part of our trusted, responsible and feckless elected leaders to get it.

What is their problem? What is our problem?

Sarah Palin posted about this emerging crisis this week (and created a not-so-small news cycle in the process), taking on "The 4-Dollar-Per-Gallon President," which is probably a low-ball figure. Palin scored President Obama's energy program, which, at best, does nothing to reverse the rise in prices at the pump even in the long-term,...

If there weren't a blanket taboo on debating Islam (witness Rep. King's PC-gagged and bound hearings), maybe more lawmakers would realize the utter futility and irresponsible waste in Western-style nation-building in a sharia culture. As it is, the debate as described below is faintly reminscent of the story of the blind men and the elephant....

From the LA Times:

Congressional Republicans on Thursday held fast to support for the Afghanistan war, heavily opposing a troop withdrawal in a vote that tested whether conservative new members would adhere to the party leaders on a significant question of U.S. policy.
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich...

The Libya Hawks gather. Not that you or your Congressional representatives have a say or anything, but the USA will be voting at 6pm at the UN Security Council on a no-fly-zone resolution for Libya.

Meanwhile:

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations panel and a frequent administration ally, told a top State Department official Thursday that the Obama administration should come to Congress to approve a declaration of war before agreeing to action at the United Nations.

US Army 2nd Lt. Stephen Petraeus, Wardak Province, A-stan, September 2010: Now we know -- what?

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Some fireworks at Gen. Petraeus's appearance before Congress yesterday. I would like to see the plain, unadorned transcript but so far all I can find are a couple of write-ups that tell us that, while questioning the general, Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-NC), whose district includes Camp Lejeune, asked Petraues to "be honest" about how long US troops would have to remain in Afghanistan. Here's the core exchange:

JONES: You know, 15, 16, 17 years, for God sakes, how much more can we take, how much more can we give treasure and blood?

PETRAEUS: I may not be at this table, probably won’t be, in 2015, but I’ll tell you that my son is in uniform, and Lieutenant Petraeus just completed a tour in Afghanistan, which thankfully we were able to keep very quiet, and left in November after serving as an infantry platoon leader. We’re very proud of what he did. He thinks he was doing something...

The cast of "Midsomer Murders": What's wrong -- what's very wrong -- with this picture?

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"When the native hears a speech about Western culture, he pulls out his knife," wrote Frantz Fanon, the seminal theorist of anti-Western Third Worldism and, not incidentally, college touchstone of President Obama. By now, Fanon has been completely internalized by ... Western culture.

That's the conclusion I draw on reading this news report on the "suspension" and pending "investigation" of the producer and co-creator of a TV detective show with the termerity to be set in an English village peopled by indigenous "white" English people (still just hanging on by a thread at 92 percent of the British population). Suspension? Investigation? This so far beyond Orwell that no one even notices.

From the AP:

LONDON (AP) — The English county of Midsomer is rural, picturesque, astonishingly murder-prone and completely white.

Once upon a time, it was kind of a big deal when Gen. David Petraeus came to town to testify before Congress about "the war." That was when the wars in Iraqistan weren't exactly young, but also hadn't yet execeeded the 100-Year-War, and hadn't stretched into a kind of national security wall paper that no one notices, cares about or wants to change.

(What democratically elected official will actually heed polling showing two-thirds of Americans don't think the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting? I really wonder. But welcome, brethren.)

Seems naive, but there was some buzz around that first appearance Petraeus made before Congress to present his views of the war in post-"surge" Iraq -- as though it meant something in terms of advancement or milestones or something. But no. It was the first of many, many similar assessments. How similar? Read on.

On September 7, 2007, the New York Times used the words "fragile and easily reversed" to describe the general's assessment.

Do you think the State Department noticed that no one in Arizona, Mexico, or even Mars took to the streets to celebrate the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords? No one seemed to think it was a “natural” act — the Islamic term du jour to rationalize the throat-slitting massacre of a sleeping Jewish family: 36-year-old Udi Fogel, his 35-year-old wife, Ruth, and, yes, their three children: 11-year-old Yoav, 4-year-old Elad, and Hadas, their 3-month-old baby.

There had been about a week between this most hideous Muslim barbarity and . . . well, the last hideous Muslim barbarity. On that one, the Obama administration could not bring itself to label as “terrorism” a Kosovar jihadist’s gory attack on American airmen in Germany.

JERUSALEM – Two members of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' official security forces were arrested in conjunction with this past weekend's bloody massacre in which five family members were brutally stabbed to death inside their home in the Jewish village of Itamar, WND has learned.

The names of the apprehended suspects will be released to the Israeli media within hours but were revealed to WND by security officials working on the murder.

Two cousins are now in Israeli custody and are suspected in the slayings. Ahmed Awad is an officer in Abbas' Preventative Security Services in the northern West Bank city of Nablis. Iyad Awad is an officer in Abbas' General Intelligence services in Ramallah.

Both the Preventative and General Intelligence services of Fatah are armed, trained and funded by the U.S.

The duo did not personally carry out the murders, but rather they assisting in the planning and logistics, informed security...

We don't know the impact of Rep. Peter King's hearings into Islamic "radicalization," but already we need a cheat sheet to debunk the disinformation and slander heaped upon the Long Island Republican's head for his one simple "crime," which I'll name below.

King has been accused of many things for holding these hearings, but this "crime," which I consider a patriotic duty, is never mentioned by his critics. Part of the reason may be that this "crime" isn't consciously understood as such by King's critics or even by King himself, so carefully hidden is it behind euphemism and misdirection, and so heavily armored is it by a complex defense of emotional reflexes.

Hence, the need for a cheat sheet about all the "crimes" the King hearings are not.

1) Holding hearings into Islamic "radicalization" is not an exercise in "McCarthyism," as widely and deeply misunderstood.

First of all, that's because the investigative efforts of Sen. Joseph McCarthy,...

Just wondering if any of those Libya Hawks (here are a few) caught Robert Baer on Fox last night. The way the former CIA operative tells it, the Muslim Brotherhood is the "strongest group in Libya" and "transcends all the tribes." Baer also mentioned that Libyan MB members told him years ago that they wanted to set up a "caliphate" in Libya-- just by the way.

If Baer is correct about MB strength, a NATO-US-UN-EU-NR-WS no-fly-zone would actually help empower the Muslim Brotherhood -- a "strategy" not worth one American flyer or one American airplane.

Mark Cuban owns Landmark Theaters, the Dallas Mavericks and is worth $2.5 billion. He provided some loose change ($5 million) to Brian de Palma (right) to make Redacted, a pornographically vile portrait of the US in Iraq focused, as only the camera of the sicko de Palma can focus, on a fictional story based on the singular horror of the Mahmudiya rape and killings. This incident, to Cuban and de Palma, represented the "other side" of the war, indeed was emblematic of it.

No one bought it. Literally. The stats, as compiled on Wikipedia, tell us only 3,000 Americans saw the thing on opening weekend, grossing $25,628 for the Cuban-de Palma team. Total U.S. gross added up to $65,388. Even the anti-American global audience stayed away in droves: International...

It has been seen alighting in potentially dangerous numbers on the Right side of the political spectrum, neoconservative wavelength. It appears to be a mutation of the War Hawk and the Democracy Hawk. Its throaty warble tells us there is some imaginary but overriding interest in taking sides in Libya, offing Qaddafi and imposing a no-fly-zone on behalf of "the rebels."

September 17, 2001: The President of the USA at the Islamic Center in Washington. CAIR's Nihad Awad is to his left.

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Patrick Poole at PJM walks us up to Rep. Peter King's Thursday hearings along a must-travel trip down jihad-memory lane:

The hysterics over Thursday’s hearings on Islamic radicalization by the House Homeland Security Committee has reached epic proportions. Islamic groups have likened the hearings to a new era of McCarthyism; James Zogby of the Arab American Institute wrote in an editorial in a Pakistani newspaper that the hearings were going to result in increased radicalization and...

FRANKFURT, Germany — The suspect in the slaying of two U.S. airmen at Frankfurt airport has confessed to targeting American military members, a German security official said Thursday as investigators probed what they considered a possible act of Islamic terrorism.

German federal prosecutors took over the investigation into Wednesday’s shooting, which also injured two U.S. airmen, one of them critically. They are working together with U.S. authorities, who said Thursday the suspect was not on any American watch list.

At Here's the Right Side of It, John L. Work puts the global scene together in a collage of horrors that your morning paper won't ever feature, including this video from a typical German school (via Vlad Tepes):

John's solution here.

Meanwhile, while out bobblehead focus lingers on Germany for half asecond, note that Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip "Islam is Islam and that's it" Erdogan was in Dusseldorf on Sunday, where he received what Spiegel Online describes as a "rock star" welcome from 10,000 Turks in a sports arena on a campaign-like- rally that preceded his visit to Angela Merkel.

"They call you guest workers, foreigners, or German Turks. It doesn't matter what they all call you: You are my fellow citizens, you are my people, you are my friends, you are my brothers and sisters!"